‘We live in an era of nearly constant ideological challenge by those who seek to inflame our doubts about whether we are going to ever regain that wonderful No. 1-in-the-world status that we actually never had.’

Going to college is tough enough without leading a campaign to repeal a bad state law, but that's what Zach Kopplin, 19, has been doing for several years. His target: The badly named Louisiana Science Education Act, which actually allows teachers in science classrooms to discuss creationism as a way to question evolution.

Voters keep sending signals that they have very mixed feelings about corporate-based school reform. The latest signs come from Los Angeles, where races for three Board of Education seats resulted in one defeat, one win, and one runoff for supporters of school reform.

In state after state, critics of education reform try to get data from state education departments to see for themselves how well the reforms are working but often get stonewalled. Here's one such story.

Good news for those who see school reform as a way to make big bucks: A new report says that the global education market is now worth $4.4 trillion -- that's TRILLION -- and set to grow a lot over the next five years.

ducation Arne Duncan made clear in an interview with Bloomberg Radio that he plans to concentrate on early childhood education in President Obama's second term and he said the country must deal with gun violence now. Here are excerpts from the interview.

Charter schools that start out doing poorly aren't likely to improve, and charters that are successful from the beginning most often stay that way, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University who also analyzed charter management organizations.

"We seem to think," California Gov. Jerry Brown said in his State of the State Address today, "that education is a thing like a vaccine that can be designed from afar and simply injected into our children." Here are some of the other things he said in address on education.

Here is an example of how school reform has become little more than a business in some arenas (and just how removed some reformers have gotten from classrooms and teachers and students and the actual dynamic of teaching and learning). It's the "Business Plan Competition" being run by the Yale School of Management.

The Republicans have chosen their lineup for the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce in the 113th Congress, and it turns out that Indiana took top honors in terms of number of seats. Here's the list.

Researchers who looked at data from more than 18,000 10th-graders found little correlation between the time students spent doing homework and better grades in math and science courses. But they did find a positive relationship the time spent on homework and standardized test scores.

A consortium of highly regarded universities around the country said today it was starting a first-of-its kind program that would allow undergraduates from the schools to take approved online courses for credit from any of the institutions.

Here is a call to President Obama and other school reformers to reevaluate the reform initiatives they have undertaken in recent years, framed against the documentary "The Fog of War," in which former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara came to realize how he had ignored evidence in his prosecution of the Vietnam War.

There's at a lot at stake for public education in Tuesday's election. There are initiatives on school funding, the spread of charter schools and vouchers, and plenty more. Here are some key races to watch.

More than 150 public school teachers put their heads together to devise solutions to problems that most affect their profession. Then they got to do something unusual with their conclusions: present them to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

More than 50 organizations sign a letter to President Obama about legislation that would codify a Bush-era regulation that allows states to label teachers as “highly qualified” when they are still in training – and, in many cases, just beginning training – in alternative route programs.
alternative route programs.Bamajoin in

A health expert writes that while there isn’t likely to be peace in the education world over charter schools and standardized testing, on this everyone should agree: The need to focus attention on disparities among our youth in education and in health.

Florida is the state that keeps on giving, at least to education writers. What it gives to its students is another question. One thing it isn’t giving to all of its students these days is classroom teachers.

Amid the national debate about "Tiger Mother" Amy Chua's parenting style, let's look at what Michelle Rhee recently said about her own children and what those comments reveal about Rhee and her views about education.

It's hard to argue with the general notion in a new report about educational productivity released today that says -- are you surprised -- that we waste a lot of money. But beyond that, I'm trying to figure out what else of value the report offers. Help.

If Education Secretary Arne Duncan were sitting in the editorial board of The New York Times talking about education, do you think he would put in a plug for a specific candidate to be chancellor of the city's public schools?

Those hoping for educator buy-in on the next big education reform idea should first consult this translation guide , which explains some catchphrases and buzzwords that set off warning bells for teachers.

If you have any doubt that business thinking has taken over the education policy debate, take a look at these invitations from two non-profit organizations in Washington D.C., the CATO Institute and the Center for American Progress.

An educator offers some resolutions for the new year: That President Obama et al stop saying, "We are going to educate ourselves toward a 21st Century economy;" that people who really know about education appear on Oprah; that policy makers stop making standardized testing the gold standard of student achievement and teacher effectiveness; that we stop using corporate speak (game changer, incentivize) to talk about education. And more.

If you want to understand where public education reform is heading, look south and east to Florida, where the governor-elect, Rick Scott, is talking about a new funding student formula that is more likely to destroy the public school system than accomplish anything else.

There’s an education reform strategy that has 50 years of solid research behind it, with proven results that demonstrate how to improve student achievement. It’s. a solution backed by both political parties to help narrow the achievement gap, increase high school graduation rates and reduce crime and delinquency. So why don't we focus on it like a laser beam?

It didn’t long for the Education Department to try to link its school turnaround policy to a new report that says that the number of high school “dropout factories” has declined in the last decade. The problem for the department is that there is no link.

An educator warns that after teachers have been sufficiently scapegoated for the troubled public education system, parents will be next. And she offers an alternate framework for which to reform schools, one of responsibility rather than phony accountability.

The great New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote in a recent piece that if he were a cub reporter today, he’d want to be “covering the epicenter of national security -- but that would be the Education Department.” If Friedman the cub reporter had turned in this piece, a veteran education editor would have sent it back, asking him to back up his contentions with research. He’d have a hard time.

This didn't take long: Joel Klein announces on Nov. 9 that at year’s end he will resign as York City’s Schools chancellorship to become executive vice president at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Yesterday the company announced it was buying a technology company with big financial ties to the New York City school system.

An award-winning veteran teacher reflects on the reasons we bother to educate children, and concludes that we have forgotten or never knew, because if we did, we wouldn't do it the way we do now. "I find I am becoming increasingly radicalized as I age," he writes.

Bill Gates just urged school districts and states to stop rewarding teachers for their experience in the classroom and/or advanced education degrees. Arne Duncan makes the same argument. But evidence shows that teaching experience DOES matter.

Education historian Diane Ravitch gave a speech at Rice University about school reform in which she directly challenged officials from Teach for America and the Knowledge Is Power Program who were present -- the very people who had invited her.

The talk in education circles in Florida is that the governor elect, Rick Scott, may be looking for a new education commission and one name that seems dominant in the discussion is Michelle Rhee, who just resigned as Washington D.C. Schools chancellor.

A teacher explains how an obsession with data has led to the redefinition of teaching and learning: "Teaching itself has become redefined as generating, collecting, and using data, and learning has become redefined as the curve connecting data points. This is a fundamental shift in how educators think, talk, and go about educating our children. Unfortunately, it is not a shift that serves anyone but the data-collectors very well."

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, but at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington D.C., chef Lisa Dobbs runs a food program that has young students relishing broccoli, tilapia encrused with panko, boureks with beef or vegetables, and other foods not commonly embraced by kids.

The quality of American education is going to get worse. Count on it. And contrary to the conventional wisdom, the main reason isn’t going to be the loss of funding accompanying economic hard times. Educator Marion Brady explains why.

School principal George Wood, acknowledging that "it is peculiar for someone who values education to be arguing for what has often been a very conservative position," explains why he thinks the Education Department should be eliminated.

You might think, or at least I would, that a ticketed discussion at the Harvard University Institute of Politics on education would include people with different views. But with Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and John Podesta as the panel, the "discussion" will sound more like an echo chamber.

The man expected to be the new chairman of the House's education committee has some strong opinions about policy: He immensely dislikes No Child Left Behindy, but wants the Disabilities Education Act fully funded.

Nationwide, there is a large and growing group of bright kids whose brains aren’t wired right for a demanding college routine. The strategies and supports that worked in high school when they were living at home are not adequate to the new demands that college places on the executive functions of the brain.

I have one question about this poster promoting Education Secretary Arne Duncan's speech on school reform at UNESCO headquarters in Paris this week: Who thought showing Duncan playing basketball with President Obama was a good idea?

If you liked a video I posted this week showing a funny but scary conversation about collaborative planning and teaching, here's a different one, this on "differentiation." Watch the new one even if you didn't like the first one.

The folks at Kiplinger.com, which offers financial advice, did some numbers crunching and came up with their list of the best values in private universities and liberal arts colleges, taking quality and cost into consideration.

Across the country, class sizes are increasing at unprecedented rates. Budget pressures are weighing on school districts, but there has also been a fierce attack on the value of class size reduction. Here are the most common myths about class size (No 1: It is an unproven, ineffective reform) along with the facts.

Given all the attention STEM-related subjects get, you could be forgiven for thinking that math, science, technology and engineering are the only things college students can take. In this STEM era, the humanities are getting new attention at colleges and universities.

David B. Cohen writes, referring to Lewis Carrol's "Alice's Adventures: "Much of the education reform debate has been down the rabbit hole for a while, but I keep expecting people to act with some common sense."

James Comer and Robert Pianta write about a new report that says: "Despite big advances in our understanding of how children and adolescents grow and learn, little of that knowledge has found its way into schools or educator preparation programs."

Monty Neill asks and answers: Why is Congress so unwilling to recognize both research and public opinion and overhaul the most basic fact of No Child Left Behind: Its high-stakes standardized testing regime has failed?

Education historian Diane Ravitch writes: "Few people realize that merit pay schemes have been tried again and again since the 1920s. Belief in them waxes and wanes, but the results have never been robust." And a day after a big study was released showing that performance pay made no difference, the Education Department handed out millions of dollars for the development of merit pay programs.

When President Obama sat down for an interview about school reform with NBC's Matt Lauer, they walked right up to the link between poverty and student achievement, but wound up ignoring the elephant in the room. And that tells you what you need to know about the Obama administration's school reform policy.

We are in the season of the educational documentary. There has been a lot written about several films, including "Waiting for Superman," but the real question is what happens after the final credits roll. Will there be any lasting impact?

The Texas Board of Education adopts a controversial resolution today that accuses textbook publishers of favoring Islam over Christianity and tells them to stop it. Never mind that the books the board cited as examples of bias were phased out of Texas classrooms long ago.

Diane Ravitch, writing about Mayor Adrian Fenty's loss, says: "Journalists attributed Fenty’s loss to the power of the teachers’ union, but such an explanation implies that black voters, even in the privacy of the voting booth, lack the capacity to make an informed choice. When the Tea Party wins a race, journalists don’t write about who controlled their vote, but about a voter revolt; they acknowledge that those who turned out to vote had made a conscious decision."

The World Bank announced that it will make $750 million in additional investment through 2015 to achieve universal primary education. The additional funding of $150 million per year over the next five years represents less than 1/100 of the total global need.

In an era of unrelenting bashing of public education by “experts,” a new poll shows that most Americans actually like their neighborhood public schools -- though they don’t seem to like public schools in general -- and they have trust in teachers. And the Obama administration’s education agenda gets mixed reviews in the 2010 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll.

For those who follow test scores, here's a new study of five years of assessment trends showing that U.S. 4th and 8th graders are doing better in reading and math than they were in 2005. It’s not just according to the states’ own tests used for No Child Left Behind accountability, but also according to the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The Texas Board of Education finally adopted its social studies standards a few weeks ago, seeming to put an end to the a huge controversy that erupted when critics accused religious fundamentalists of rewriting American history. Now, apparently, it is taking up a new issue: How students should learn about Islam.

A school board president blasts current education reformers, saying "They simply just don’t get it. They don’t realize what true education is and they have no clue the challenges we face in helping students engage in it."

Diane Ravitch predicts that the 2010-11 school year will be another year in which "teachers and principals will be blamed and punished" unless their students' test scores go "up and up," more principals will be fired and more schools will be closed. And more.